The Northwest Forest Plan is the troubled legacy that haunts both the timber industry and environmental groups. Neither side was happy with the plan when it was approved 21 years ago, and neither side has a clean sheet two decades later.

Environmentalists defend the plan, but even they have to admit that the plan did nothing to save the spotted owl, which is doing worse than ever before. The environmental groups also have a hard time defending the abject poverty that the Forest Plan created in rural communities across the West. The timber industry, meanwhile, was hit hard by the massive reduction in the federal timber harvest caused by the plan, which never produced even its promised timber yield, let alone anything resembling the harvest levels before the plan went into effect.

In the last couple years, the pendulum -- however slowly -- seems to be swinging back the other direction. Republicans now control both houses of Congress, and even some Democrats are recognizing that the federal timber harvest is woefully inadequate to support our rural counties. Several bills have advanced in Congress to create more active management of federal forests, though none have yet to be signed into law.

And now the Northwest Forest Plan itself, long in the tooth after 20 years, may be in its death throes.

Environmental writer Paul Kobersteinwrites in the Portland Tribune this month that the U.S. Forest Service (controlled by a Democratic president) is planning to revise the Northwest Forest Plan or even ditch it altogether.

Can environmental groups and the forestry industry co-exist? It's a question still relevant two decades after the timber wars fought over the spotted owl and Northwest Forest Plan. And it's a question still being asked by leaders from the environmental and forestry communities, as well as federal, state and local political leaders.

Strictly speaking, the answer to the question is yes. Of course, environmental groups and the forestry industry exist and will continue to exist, despite their sometimes divergent views. The real question is, can environmentalists and the forestry industry both get what they want? Can they both accomplish their goals? Is there a middle ground that will allow them both to thrive?

Some of these questions came up during a recent talk by Glenn Lamb, the director of the Columbia Land Trust, a Vancouver, Wash., conservation group. Lamb, who was speaking in Astoria, Ore., is the head of an environmental group that is interested not in lawsuits but in buying forestland from willing sellers and often keeping that land in forestry.

Here's what we wrote in December about a major land deal Columbia Land Trust and Pope Resources brokered near Mount St. Helens:

(In the deal) announced this week, Poulsbo's Pope Resources is selling development rights to 3,095 acres of forestland near Mount St. Helens to Columbia Land Trust, a Vancouver conservation group. The vast majority of the land (2,885 acres) will stay in active forestry.

The transaction is the third of a four-stage deal that will eventually protect 20,000 acres of forestland near Swift Reservoir in Skamania County from development. (We wrote about the second stage, Pope's sale of 2,330 acres to Columbia Land Trust, last year.)

"This landmark project shows what can be achieved when a timber company, a conservation group and public leaders put their heads together to find lasting conservation solutions that benefit both people and nature," Columbia Land Trust Executive Director Glenn Lamb said in a released statement.

The forestry industry is well aware that it needs to get younger as many of its leading professionals age without enough replacements on the way among Millennials, Generation Y or Generation X.

One of the most promising avenues to reach this critical audience is logging shows. Teenagers and 20-somethings, many of whom were already interested in working in outdoor and rural settings, jump at the chance to compete in logging competitions and prove their worth among their peers.

Earlier this month, the Astoria Timber Festival kicked off in the Oregon coastal town, and reading the media coverage of the event, it's hard not to be uplifted about the spirit and enthusiasm of the forestry industry's future leaders.

Some in the industry openly question the work ethic of the youth. They just aren't hard workers, they say, they just don't have the drive.

But judging by the crowd of hard-working teenage lumberjacks - and lumberjills - competing at the Astoria Timber Festival and Job Fair on Saturday, there's good reason to disbelieve that broad generalization.

The focus of this weekend's timber festival was the logging competitions themselves, featuring three local high school teams, from Knappa High School, Vernonia High School and Clatskanie Middle and High School.

Not a strict competition, like the number of events they travel to around the state, the Astoria Timber Festival is more of a demonstration of what these kids can do. And as it turns out, their skills are good enough to make the local timber industry send recruiters in to snag them.

Wildfire prevention is a big topic in Olympia right now. We wrote recently about the state Department of Natural Resources' request for $20 million over two years to thin forests and protect them from fires, and while that's still under debate, the Legislature is also considering several bills that would give more power to local residents to fight wildfires on state land.

The bills will likely be combined into one piece of legislation, and are not without opponents.

House Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Brian Blake, D-Aberdeen, said after the hearing he wants to combine policy changes that have a chance of passing into a single bill.

Legislation may run into opposition from DNR and the union representing DNR employees. Department and union representatives told the committee they will work on legislation, but did not support the bills (Reps. Joel Kretz, R-Wauconda, and Shelly Short, R-Addy) introduced.

Some lawmakers expressed concern that letting landowners take the initiative will result in lawsuits or amateurish actions that make fires worse.

Congress didn't get much done in the waning days of its session last year, especially on timber issues, and nothing was felt more strongly than the lack of action taken on the Secure Rural Schools (SRS) program. For the last 15 years, the program has sent federal subsidies to timber counties hurt by the decline in the federal timber harvest, which was in turn caused by the listing of the spotted owl and other factors.

The SRS program is a critical lifeline for rural counties across the country, but especially in timber states. Congress declined to extend the payments for 2015. There are multiple explanations for this, including that some lawmakers held out because they wanted timber reform measures that would actually increase the federal harvest as opposed to just extending the payments. Laudable as this goal may be, the counties have yet to receive any SRS money for this year and it's having a huge impact on their budgets.

Earlier this month, the U.S. Forest Service announced that without SRS, the timber counties will receive money under a 1908 law that gives money to timber counties but until recently had been superceded by SRS. Problem is, the money paid under the 1908 law is much, much lower than what the counties would have received under Secure Rural Schools.

Forest Service payments to Oregon counties drop from $67.9 million to $5.9 million; California, from $35.6 million to $8.7 million; Idaho, from $28.3 million to $2 million; Washington, from $21.5 million to $2.1 million; and Montana, from $21.3 million to $2 million.

The future of the forestry industry depends on cultivating the next generation of foresters, and on that note, we have some positive developments in the Northwest this month.

The good news rolled in this week with the announcement from Washington State University that it will restart its forestry major after a four-year hiatus. The major was shut down because of budget cuts and will now be revived beginning this fall, with the support of the Legislature and industry leaders.

WSU's restart of the major comes, not coincidentally, as the number of forestry jobs starts to swing upward.

The job market for foresters has improved in recent years, said (Keith Blatner, program leader for forestry at WSU and a WSU professor). The number of lumber and pulp and paper mills has declined, but the remaining mills are larger and more automated, Blatner said. Timber firms, consulting firms and governmental and non-governmental organizations all need foresters, he said.

“We’ve seen a lot of restructuring in the way lands are held and managed, but there’s still a demand for foresters out there to do the work,” Blatner said. “It’s a different mix of employers than we used to have.”

For the forestry major to be viable, WSU hopes for at least 100 certified majors within the next few years. Forestry students need a good foundation in biology, chemistry, college-level algebra, introductory calculus, statistics, communication skills and computer applications, Blatner said.

“It’s always important that our students be field-ready when they graduate,” he said. “We’ll be stressing having students get some professional experience through summer jobs so they are very comfortable on the ground when they graduate.”

It's not often that advocates get an hour in front of the Washington Legislature to celebrate the success of the historic Forests & Fish Law, but that's exactly what happened this week. Leaders from the timber industry, environmental community and state, county and tribal governments commemorated the 15th anniversary of one of the toughest sets of environmental regulations in the country. The presentation in front of a joint hearing of the House Agriculture & Natural Resources Committee and the Senate Natural Resources & Parks Committee (video here) was an expanded version of a similar discussion at the Washington Forest Protection Association's (WFPA) annual meeting two months ago.

Speakers included Mark Doumit, executive director of WFPA; Joseph Pavel, Council Vice-Chair and natural resources director for the Skokomish Indian Tribe; Jay Manning, president of the Washington Environmental Council; Joe Stohr, deputy director of the Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife; Eric Johnson, executive director of the Washington State Association of Counties; Stephen Bernath, senior policy adviser for the Washington Department of Ecology; Aaron Everett, the Washington state forester; and Ken Miller of the Washington Farm Forestry Association.

The broad cross-section of speakers was no accident, as the Forests & Fish Law only works because a wide range of stakeholders came together for a common goal. Doumit said during the hearing that "these are people who have not always gotten along" but that they united for the new law in 1999 because they knew how important it was to protect fish and maintain clean water.

"It's a model of collaboration; it is a model of working together that we fully support," said Manning, from the Washington Environmental Council.

"The (timber) industry voluntarily stepped up (in 1999) to a rigorous set of (environmental) standards, some of the most rigorous in the world," Manning added. "They should get credit for that and we have tried to give them credit for that."

Momentum could be growing for more active management of Washington's state-owned forests. After a record wildfire season last year, the Washington State Department of Natural Resources (DNR) is asking for $20 million over the next two years to thin forests and other forest fire protection, a leap over the $4 million that DNR got from the Legislature the last time it asked.

Washington DNR has long bemoaned the poor health of the state's forests, especially in Eastern Washington, where the trees are wracked by insects and disease.

In the past five years, the state has spent about $200 million fighting wildfires, but only about $31 million trying to keep Washington’s forests healthy and less likely to burn.

While dry weather and repeated lightning strikes were part of what made the 2014 fire season so severe, the condition of the state’s forests also was to blame, (State Forester Aaron) Everett said.

“Our first line of defense is the condition of the forests,” Everett said. “Right now, our forests are stressed out.”

State officials estimate that about 30 percent of forests in Eastern Washington — about 2.7 million acres — need restoration treatments, such as thinning trees or planting fire- and insect-resistant ones. Government agencies, private landowners and timber companies only complete treatments on about 140,000 acres statewide per year, Everett said.

That has left many Washington forests crowded, filled with small trees and wood debris that fuel fires and make them burn hotter.

In the past, the Legislature has not given DNR nearly the full amount it's requested for forest thinning, but this year lawmakers may be thinking differently.

Two major land deals that will preserve working forests in Washington moved forward in the last few days, and Washington timber companies are at the heart of both transactions.

Plum Creek Timber Co.'s sale of 48,000 acres of forestland along Interstate 90 in Washington (as well as 117,000 acres in the Blackfoot River Valley in Montana) just became final last week. (We first wrote about the deal last month.) The Nature Conservancy takes over both the Washington and Montana land, which the group says it will still use, at least in part, for timber production.

James Schroeder, director of conservation for the Nature Conservancy, told the Kittitas County Public Lands Advisory Committee on Monday that there will be a series of public meetings regarding the use of the land and recreation access, with the first expected to be scheduled for February.

...The goal is to have a recreation and land-use management plan in place by June or July, so the Nature Conservancy can apply for timber harvest permits. It plans to do both commercial and noncommercial harvests.

“We’ve projected out 10 years annual harvest and we are hoping we can make it pencil out,” Schroeder said. “We’re not looking at this as a moneymaker. We’d put money back into restoration if it does pencil out.”

There was some momentum for this post-election "lame duck" session of Congress on timber issues. Namely, Republicans will be taking over the Senate next month, and so Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., had only weeks to make his mark before he lost his chairmanship of the Senate Finance Committee. Wyden has been trumpeting his bill on Oregon timber reform (which would likely steer the national debate) for more than a year, and he also has a bill to change the way forest firefighting is paid for that could free up money for timber restoration.

Out of desperation, innovation, right?

Not so fast. Wyden's bill, which would increase the harvest in some timber counties, was opposed by many timber groups and some environmentalists, and even with the added urgency, Wyden's bill failed to get enough support before Congress adjourned for the year this week.

It's tempting to give Wyden, as well as the three Oregon congressmen who championed the House bill, credit for working hard in a difficult political environment. But there are two big problems with accepting one more failure as a necessary step toward eventual success: Rural Oregon has been waiting ... and waiting ... and waiting ... for decades. And, the Oregon delegation will be operating with less political clout next year as Republicans test out their new power.

The aging of the nation's small forest landowners is an industry truth that's inescapable. We wrote last year about several efforts to attract younger folks to forestry and a program from the Pinchot Institute for Conservation to help older forest landowners pay their medical bills in exchange for carbon credits.

This week the Associated Press tackled the issue with a story that looks at the problem through the eyes of forest owners in Vermont, but also with an eye on an innovative program out of Oregon State University.

Brett Butler, the coordinator of the U.S. Forest Service's National Woodland Survey, says there's a common misconception that the majority of forest land is owned by the government. Nationally, more than half of the 766 million acres of forest land is owned privately by proprietors whose average age is 62.5.

"It's really families and individuals that control the fate and the future of the forests," Butler said.

One of the biggest issues isn't necessarily aging forest owners selling their land all at once but their having no way to pass it on their children and selling the land in pieces.

The concerns of forestry professionals are more subtle than the typical worries over large-scale development: as the parcels of land get smaller the people who own them might not have the same commitment to the forests as the previous landowners.

"Our alarm bells are starting to go off, not because landowners are suddenly older, but because it's been going on long enough now that we are really beginning to see the impacts," said Mary Sisock, an assistant professor of extension forestry at the University of Vermont, who has worked on the issue across the country.

Owners of smaller parcels are less likely to invest in forestry management plans, and managing for wildlife is more difficult than on larger plots, Sisock said. And once the land gets cut up it's more likely it will be developed, and once developed there's no chance it will ever again be a working forest, she said.

Nine months after the tragic Oso landslide, a state commission convened after the disaster is about to recommend a series of reforms in land use, landslide mapping and emergency management.

The 12-member commission, created by Gov. Jay Inslee and Snohomish County Executive John Lovick, won't issue its final report until Dec. 15, but its recommendations are starting to circulate. It's good to see that the commission wants the state to undergo sophisticated mapping of potential landslide hazard zones.

The first steps outlined in the commission's draft involve launching a program to map landslide dangers throughout the state. The maps would use LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) technology. They would gauge risks for busy roads and rail lines, as well as other critical infrastructure, including the I-5 corridor and mountain highways. Maps would include predicted runout zones.

The group is recommending that DNR's Division of Geology and Earth Sciences oversee the mapping. DNR could bring in geology professionals from outside the agency to assist.

“It would make sense to draw expertise from the wider geologic community,” said UW geomorphology professor David Montgomery, one of the commissioners.

State and local officials also need to improve their coordination, especially with local volunteers willing to help in such large-scale disasters, according to the commission.

At the Tuesday meeting, commissioners largely agreed that government needs to do a better job of responding to landslide disasters -- from mobilizing official responders to incorporating skilled volunteers. Loggers and construction workers from the Darrington area played a big role in pulling survivors and 43 bodies from the muddy wasteland created by the massive Oso slide.

A new study from the U.S. Forest Service and the Nature Conservancy reveals that 3.5 million acres of forestland in Eastern Washington is overcrowded with small, fire-prone trees and needs to be restored. The study comes on the heels of Gov. Jay Inslee designating 720,000 acres of federal forestland in Eastern Washington for expedited and prioritized forest restoration.

As we've written many times, Washington's federal forests are woefully mismanaged, which in turn has allowed the trees to become infested by insects and disease and vulnerable to large wildfires. The Forest Service study and Inslee's forest designation will add more momentum to the cause of active forest management and getting our state's forests back to good health.

But they are also two steps on a long road. The study from the Forest Service and the Nature Conservancy highlights the depth of the problem, but policy changes, along with more funding, are needed to get the forests restored.

...While the recent study for the first time identifies the extent of need, no comprehensive plan exists for tackling the enormous, ongoing problem.

In recent years, state, federal, tribal and private forest managers in Eastern Washington have reduced density on about 145,000 acres annually, according to a report the (state) DNR prepared for the Legislature. That’s commercial logging and restoration-focused work, referred to together as “active management” because it’s the opposite of leaving the forests to fend for themselves.

That’s just 4 percent of the acres that need it, according to the new study. Lead scientist Ryan Haugo of The Nature Conservancy said the study used computer models to compare current forest conditions to ideal conditions, based on what the forest looked like before people began cutting down the biggest trees and putting out wildfires.

When you've made the pages of the Wall Street Journal, you know you've truly arrived. It was the Journal that wrote earlier this month about the big news: the first tall, modern wood building in U.S. history is on its way.

The 7-story office building will be constructed in Minneapolis, right next to Target Field, the home of the Minnesota Twins. The developer is Hines Interests LP of Houston, and the architect - no surprise here - is Michael Green of Vancouver, B.C.

Green, of course, is the same star architect who has been the leader in pushing large wood buildings into the public sphere in North America. He also is the star of a series of videos promoting the use of wood in large buildings. The videos are sponsored by the Washington Forest Protection Association, the Washington Contract Loggers Association, the Family Forest Foundation and the Washington Farm Forestry Association, and we wrote about Green's involvement last month.

For the past 100 years, virtually all buildings over a few stories tall have been constructed out of concrete and steel. But some architects and builders are promoting an alternative they are positioning as environmentally friendlier: good old-fashioned wood.

Last week, real-estate developer Hines Interests LP, based in Houston, unveiled plans to build a seven-story, wooden office building in Minneapolis near one of the city’s light-rail lines in an increasingly popular district downtown. Hines is calling the project T3, for timber, technology and transit.

If the building is approved by the city’s preservation and planning agencies, T3 would be the tallest modern all-timber structure in the U.S., according to reThink Wood, a coalition promoting wood in architecture. The building is designed by Vancouver-based Michael Green Architecture; the firm also designed the Wood Innovation and Design Centre in British Columbia, which opened a few weeks ago and is the tallest modern wooden building in North America.

Seattle's Plum Creek Timber Co.recently announced it was selling 48,000 acres of forestland along Interstate 90 in Washington, as well as 117,000 acres in the Blackfoot River Valley in Montana. The sale of the land in both states to The Nature Conservancy is another reminder that Plum Creek is a major player in conserving forestland for future generations.

The scope of the forestland is massive - in Washington, the land bought by The Nature Conservancy (TNC) covers 75 square miles, an area more than twice the size of Manhattan. Both the Washington and Montana land is "among the most ecologically diverse and intact biological systems remaining in the United States," according to Plum Creek.

“Plum Creek has a strong history of conservation and is pleased to partner in the sale of these lands to accommodate the public interest in securing permanent conservation that protects ecological and recreational values,” said Rick Holley, chief executive officer for Plum Creek. “This is an important conservation project that recognizes the highest benefit these lands offer -- protecting ecological values and helping to maintain public access. We are pleased that we were able to work with TNC to conserve some of the nation’s most important forest areas,” said Holley.

In a recent interview with REIT.com that did not include news of the land sale, Plum Creek's CEO, Holley, expanded on the company's conservation strategy.

REIT: What level of interest are you seeing for the sale of conservation, recreation and non-strategic rural lands? How do you determine which parcels of land to sell?

Holley: We continue to see interest in each of these categories. In terms of conservation, we are proud to be one of the largest purveyors of conservation in the country, having commited to nearly 1.5 million acres of land to conservation outcomes...

The rise of wood as a construction material for tall buildings and the 15th anniversary of the landmark Forests & Fish Law were the most prominent themes at the 106th annual meeting of the Washington Forest Protection Association this week.

About 140 people were on hand in Olympia on Nov. 6 for the annual gathering of the state's timber industry.

Gene Duvernoy, President of the conservation group Forterra, said he enjoyed listening to a panel of young forestry professionals talk about the industry's future earlier in the meeting. The young professionals' enthusiasm and drive, along with the promise of cross-laminated timber for the industry, will be a potent combination. "Think about what's going to come from that next generation" in the industry, Duvernoy said. "It's really exciting."

Washington State -- with a large supply of wood, an active timber industry and a history of innovation -- has the potential to be the nation's leader in cross-laminated timber and its use in large buildings, Duvernoy said.

The annual meeting was also an opportunity to mark the 15th anniversary of the state's 1999 Forests & Fish Law, one of the toughest sets of environmental regulations in the country. Since the law was passed, large forest landowners have improved tens of thousands of miles of forest roads, reopened about 3,800 miles of fish habitat and cleared about 5,600 stream blockages.

Biomass is a big part of the timber industry's future, but what most people talk about when it comes to turning woody biomass into energy is a process called cogeneration. This is pretty straightforward: wood waste or wood pellets are burned in a plant to create electricity.

Now another type of biomass process is getting some attention: pyrolysis. The woody biomass is still burned, but it's burned in a low-oxygen kiln to produce not electricity but liquid (bio-oil), charcoal (biochar) and gas (syngas). The bio-oil and the biochar, as of now, have the most lucrative potential.

Just last week, the Washington Department of Natural Resources hosted a demonstration near Cle Elum highlighting the power of pyrolysis. A Salt Lake City company, Amaron Energy, brought up its mobile "fast pyrolysis" reactor, built in a 45-foot-long freight container.

The bio-oil produced in pyrolysis is attracting special attention. The oil has the potential to be converted into car fuel, plastic, asphalt or heat for homes, and pyrolysis plants are being built or planned in several cities in Europe. Earlier this month ExxonMobil announced it's investing $1 million to create an advanced biofuels research program at Iowa State University, a program that will initially focus entirely on fast pyrolysis.

What's unique about the fast pyrolysis machine on display in Cle Elum is it's mobile, which means it could be transported deep into timber areas. With wood waste so close and plentiful, the fast pyrolysis process suddenly gets a lot more economical.

There may not be a more energetic time for the timber industry around the country than National Forest Products Week. The annual event, always the third week of October, is a tribute to the country's forest products industry and the 900,000 American workers who make the industry such a critical piece of the U.S. economy.

Jim Hannan, CEO and President of Georgia-Pacific, a pulp and paper company based in Atlanta, put it well this week:

It's National Forest Products Week, a nationally designated time to recognize the contributions of forest products manufacturers to the lives of all American citizens. In my opinion, the U.S. forest products industry is one of our country’s greatest success stories.

The annual celebration was established by Congress in 1960 and leads to proclamations like this one from President Obama this year:

NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim October 19 through October 25, 2014, as National Forest Products Week. I call on the people of the United States to join me in recognizing the dedicated individuals who are responsible for the stewardship of our forests and for the preservation, management, and use of these precious natural resources for the benefit of the American people.

The lack of federal forest management is hurting rural communities across the West, and Skamania County, Wash., is among the worst hit in the country.

Time after time, local leaders call on the U.S. Forest Service to start finally managing the surrounding Gifford Pinchot National Forest and make it the economic engine it's set in law to be. Now, after years of neglect, the county last week declared a state of emergency.

The declaration from the Skamania County Board of Commissioners was necessary because of "unhealthy forest conditions, yearly threat of catastrophic fires, and, minimal county government, schools and emergency services."

Michael Green is a rock star of wood architecture. The Vancouver, B.C., architect is a pioneer in expanding the use of wood in large, modern buildings from the European cities where the practice started to the cities of North America.

He designed the largest wood building in Canada, is working on several other large wood buildings (including at least one in the U.S.) and he literally wrote the book on large wood buildings (the 200-page "Case for Tall Wood Buildings," which is available for free online).

It's no wonder that we've mentioned Green several times (here, here and here) on this blog. And it's with great pleasure that we now announce Green is featured in a series of videos on The Most Natural Resource. The site, which explores the benefits of wood, is operated by the Washington Forest Protection Association, the Washington Contract Loggers Association, the Family Forest Foundation and the Washington Farm Forestry Association.